Altitude Risk Partners launches aerospace business 'club-style MGA'

Altitude Risk Partners has launched an aerospace underwriting business with capacity from Castel Underwriting Agency’s managing general agency (MGA).

Castel Underwriting is a club-style platform with capacity from Barbican, HDI-Gerling Industrie Versicherung and Sompo Japan on a quota share basis and Altitude is the first business to use it since it launched in October.

It was launched to provide capacity for individuals or teams of underwriters with niche and specialist books of business. It sells itself as being able to offer those underwriters a chance to build “significant stake in their own MGA business” if they bring their skills, knowledge and market contacts to Castel.

It also provides back-office functions such as IT systems, marketing and regulatory support.

Altitude’s founding underwriters are David Godley, a former senior airlines and generation aviation underwriter at Global Aerospace and Richard Power, a former senior airline class underwriter at Catlin. They will be joined by Tim Wright, a former space underwriter at Global Aerospace. All three share a stake in Altitude with Castel.

Altitude plans to underwrite a portfolio of airlines, manufacturing products, aviation, war and space risks.

Godley said: “The global aerospace insurance market relies on experienced underwriters, stable high-quality capacity and efficient infrastructure to underwrite the complex risks presented. 

“By launching Altitude Risk Partners on the Castel MGA platform we were able to bring all of these elements together without having to build our infrastructure from scratch. This will enable Altitude Risk Partners to provide added value to all our stakeholders.”